It is a well known tradition all around the United States that the boy asks the girl to a dance or on a date. There is that one dance you have all probably heard of where the boy is asked by the girl instead. For those of you who have not heard of it, this dance is called the Sadie Hawkins Dance. This is an informal dance where the girl invites the boy as her date. Many people question the dance, asking who is this Sadie Hawkins they talk about?

Here’s the story behind it.

Sadie Hawkins day is not actually named after a dance, but a race from Al Capps famous comic strip “Lil Abner” which included the character “Sadie Hawkins.” In the comic strip, “Sadie Hawkins Day” fell on a certain day in November. On this day, unmarried women would chase after and marry the men that they liked. This gave women a chance to go after what they wanted. People saw this as a way to change things up and let women take control of things.

The first Sadie Hawkins dance was held November 9, 1938. Within a year, hundreds of similar events had followed.By 1952, there were 400,000 known Sadie Hawkins dances in America. It became a “woman empowering dance” at high schools and colleges all over the United States and Canada.

Some other names that you may of heard this dance called by are, The Ladies Choice Dance, The Sponge Dance, The Harvest Dance and even Morp’s (which is actually prom spelled backwards).

Along with this, there are several of different events for schools to make woman feel empowered. One is powder puff. Powder puff is a football game with girls against girls. This gives girls that sense of empowerment, because it is a sport usually just for boys, but this event allows a chance for girls to take on this sport for a day.

For today’s young woman, this dance does not seem as relevant. There now are less schools having this dance. Here at Lanphier High School there is no Sadie Hawkins Dance. But that does not mean there cannot be one. Do you think we should bring back the Sadie Hawkins dance? Go to our Twitter page @TheLanphierRoar, and let us know what you think!